Major League Soccer’s #6 Draft Pick

GOING PRO Akindele’s performance in the 2013 RMAC Men’s Soccer Tournament Championship against Regis earned him MVP honors. He is now playing soccer professionally with FC Dallas.

Tesho Akindele, a senior from Thornton, Colo., who played soccer for Mines for four years, caught U.S. soccer fans’ attention when he became the sixth pick overall in the 2014 Adidas Major League Soccer SuperDraft in January. Akindele, who went to FC Dallas, had a distinguished athletic career at Mines. The four-time Daktronics First Team All-American, four-time NSCAA All-American and two-time Daktronics South Central Region Player of the Year is now the highest-ever Division II pick in MLS SuperDraft history. The last Mines student-athlete to be drafted into professional sports was Marshall Schuler ’10, picked by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 37th round of the 2010 Major League Baseball first-year player draft.

Until he was drafted, Akindele was studying electrical engineering at Mines. When asked by the media why he chose Mines, Akindele answered, “It’s one of the best engineering schools in the country.” And what about the four years he has already invested? He hints he’ll be back. “I can be an engineer when I’m 55 years old, but my soccer career has an expiration date,” said Akindele, who returns to Colorado with FC Dallas to play the Colorado Rapids on October 18, 2014.